On June 15, British Prime Minister David Cameron offered an apology before the House of Commons for the 1972 "Bloody Sunday" killings of 14 unarmed protesters in Northern Ireland. TIME looks back on other apologies for national misdeeds

Bloody Sunday

By Dan FastenbergThursday, June 17, 2010

AFP / Getty Images

It was the most notorious event of "the Troubles." Thousands of Catholics in Northern Ireland gathered in the city of Londonderry to protest London's policy of detention without trial for suspected IRA militants. The permitless and peaceful Sunday protest soon spiraled into violence when British paratroopers arrived on the scene. The ensuing bloodshed has been the inspiration for countless tributes, such as the U2 song, "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Doubt over whether there was any provocation in the crowd to justify the police action was finally put to rest by the Bloody Sunday Inquiry report, published on June 15, 2010. Cameron greeted the report from Parliament  as spectators outside looked on by video (above)  by saying the massacre was "unjustified and unjustifiable."